


You Had Me at Hello

by gutsandglitter



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 08:07:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2262201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gutsandglitter/pseuds/gutsandglitter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Jed and Abbey meet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Had Me at Hello

Jed was nine or ten beers deep and was feeling very good. 

It was nearing eleven o’clock and the party was in full swing. There was a live band, dozens of beautiful women, and as much booze as anyone could possibly hope for. 

Jed was watching in amusement as his best friend Lloyd tried to pick up the school’s cheerleading captain. 

“C’mon baby, I’ll show you something you can really cheer about,” Liam slurred.

The girl squawked and slapped him across the face before turning on heel and storming off. Jed burst into sharp peals of laughter.

“ ‘S not funny!” Liam grumbled, rubbing his cheek in irritation.

Jed continued to laugh, tears streaming down his face. Liam smacked his arm.

“Sorry, sorry,” Jed said, wiping at his eyes. He looked around. “Don’t suppose you know where the bathroom is in this place?”

“I dunno,” Liam mumbled. 

“Why thank you Thomas More, I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“I don’t know who that is-“

“Advisor to Henry the eighth.”

“-and I don’t want to know. Geek.”

“Tu pauper stultus,” Jed said, patting Liam on the back and beginning his quest for the bathroom.

He soon found the bathroom, or what he assumed were restroom facilities judging by the line of ten people standing outside it. He groaned and started to join the line, then turned and walked towards the stairs, which were blockaded by a pair of dining chairs. He checked to make sure no one was looking before clambering over them and climbing the stairs two at a time.

The upstairs hallway was dark and eerily peaceful considering the party that raged below. A large blue macramé tapestry hung on one wall, a Casablanca poster hung on the other. 

Jed tried the door closest to him and found a linen closet. The two doors after that were locked.

“And behind door number four,” he muttered to himself as he tried the fourth door in the hall. 

This door swung open for him, the bright light behind it felt like a full-frontal assault on his retinas. 

He blinked several times before the room came into focus. It was not a bathroom, it was a bedroom. The walls were painted a light shade of green and there was a white shag rug spread on the hardwood floor. His eyes wandered around the room, taking in the Gandhi poster on the wall and the extraordinarily tidy desk space. A record played softly from the turntable in the corner.

“Can I help you?”

Jed nearly jumped out of his skin. 

There was a girl sitting on the bed with a book in her lap. She was pale with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and horn-rimmed glasses sliding down her button nose. 

He stared for a few moments.

“I’m gonna need a few more hand gestures from you Marcel. Why are you in my room and more importantly why are you not leaving my room?”

“Uh, um,” he stuttered lamely. “I’m Jed. Josiah. Josiah Bartlet. I’m going to be a priest.”

The girl snickered. “I think you’ve had a bit too much of the communion wine there Father.” 

He blinked again. The girl sighed. “What do you want?”

“I-I was looking for the bathroom.”

“This isn’t it.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you still here?”

“I don’t know.”

They looked at each other for a few moments. 

“Why aren’t you at the party?” he asked. 

The girl gestured to the book in her lap. “Pathology exam on Monday.”

“You’re Pre-Med?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, I don’t even go to school. I just take Pathology exams for fun.” 

Jed chuckled. “It’s a shame, there aren’t enough doctors in this country with a sense of humor.” He stepped further into the room, examining the Gandhi poster. 

“I’m not getting rid of you am I?”

“Hmm, probably not.” He peered at the corner of the poster where the years of Gandhi’s life and death were written. “You know these dates are wrong right?”

“What?”  
“He was born in 1869, not 1859. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, born October 2nd 1869 in Porbandar. Son of Karamchand Gandhi. Karamchand was the diwan of Porbander, the diwan of course being the highest level of power an Indian-born citizen could attain during the British Imperial Reign.” He turned to look at the girl. She was stunned.

“You’re drunk off your ass and yet you can pull all of that out of your left ear?”

He shrugged.

She shook her head in amazement. “Who are you?”

“I told you, I’m Jed Bartlet. Who are you?”

“Abigail Barrington. You can call me Abbey.”

“Abigail Barrington, MD. Has a nice ring to it.”

She smirked. “I like to think so. Weren’t you looking for the bathroom?”

Jed realized that he was indeed in serious need of a bathroom. “Um yeah. Where is it?”

“Across the hall. Just don’t yak in there okay? I’m in no mood for that.”

He thanked her and walked across the hall. He relieved himself and washed his hands, then splashed some cold water on his face for good measure. He grabbed at the towel nearest himself and dried his face. The towel smelled sweet, like coffee and vanilla. He wondered if it was Abbey’s.

Now, he realized, he was faced with a dilemma. He was Jed Bartlet, the man who could drink anyone under the table and still be the life of the party, charming girls left and right with his sparkling wit. There was a wild party going on downstairs, the kind that only happened a few times a semester. He had been looking forward to this night all week.

And yet something made him walk back across the hall into the little green bedroom.

Abbey had adjusted her glasses and gone back to her reading. 

“What are you studying now?”

“The symptoms of lupus in children.”

“Ah, systemic lupus erythematosus,” Jed said, carefully maneuvering his drunk tongue around the syllables. “In children you’d be looking for the butterfly rash wouldn’t you?”

Abbey eyed him over the top of her book. “Among other things. You’re pretty sharp for someone set on seminary school.”

“As Shakespeare said - ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.”

Abbey nodded. “Henry the Sixth?” 

Jed nodded. “I’ve always been partial to the histories. They’re a trainwreck when it comes to actual facts, but there’s something more satisfying about them than his fictional tragedies.”

Abbey shrugged. “I like them all, though I’m a firm believer that Macbeth wasn’t actually his.”

Jed snickered. “Literary conspiracy theorist.” His drunk tongue had quite a time getting around the word “conspiracy”, but Abigail understood him well enough.

“Only when it comes to the Bard,” she replied, pushing her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose.

Jed nodded “Mind if I sit?” he asked, gesturing towards her desk chair.

Abbey sighed and closed her book. “Yeah, none of this is sticking anyway.”

Jed sat and watched as Abbey gathered her papers and put them back in their folder. She got off the bed and crossed the room to her desk. The folder and the book were carefully tucked away in the side-drawer of her desk. She closed the drawer and stretched, hands raised high over her head. She raised herself up on her tiptoes and rocked her head back and forth. After a few moments she dropped her arms back to her sides and turned back towards Jed, who quickly pretended he hadn’t just been staring at her.

“What time is it?” she asked.

He looked at his watch. “Eleven-thirty.”

She furrowed her brow. “That means I’ve been studying for seven hours straight.”

“You must really want that MD after your name.”

She chewed on her lip. “I want a lot of things,” she said quietly.

Jed didn’t know what to make of this, so he remained silent. 

Abbey cocked her head at Jed and studied him for a moment. “I could really go for a milkshake right now. Want to go to Big Al’s Diner with me?”

Jed had only known this woman for a total of ten minutes, but already he knew he would have followed her into the depths of hell if she had asked him to.

He nodded.

She smiled and grabbed her keys off the nightstand. When he stood, Jed realized she was almost as tall as he was. They were at perfect eye level with each other and for a moment she simply stood in front of him, looking at him with an indecipherable expression on her face. 

A moment later she took a deep breath and extended her hand to him. “Come on Jed, let’s go.”

He took hold of her hand and immediately knew that he never wanted to let go.


End file.
